[ix] THE LODESTAE 49
Till you should come. Your supper has been spread
This long while: you'll be ready for your meat."
With that he beckoned me to take a seat
Before the table, lifting from the crook 110
The singing kettle ; while with far-off look,
As though she neither saw nor heard,
His wife sat gazing at the glowing peat.
So, wondering sorely, I sat down to eat;
And yet she neither spoke nor stirred,
But in her high-backed chair sat bolt-upright
With still grey eyes and tumbled hair, as white
As fairy-cotton, straggling o'er her brow
And hung in wisps about her wasted cheek.
But when I'd finished and drawn near the fire 120
She suddenly turned round to speak,
Her old eyes kindling with a tense desire.
Her words came tremblingly : " You'll tell me now
What news you bring of him, my son ? " Amazed,
I met that searching and love-famished look ;
And then the old man, seeing I looked dazed,
Made shift to swing aside the kettle-crook,
And muttered in my ear :
" John Netherton, his name."—And, as I gazed
Into the peat that broke in clear blue flame, 130
Remembrance flashed upon me with the name,
And I slipped back in memory twenty-year—
Back to the fo'c'sle of a villainous boat;
And once again in that hot hell I lay
Watching the smoky lanthorn duck and sway,
As though in steamy stench it kept afloat .. .
The fiery fangs of fever at my throat,[ix] THE LODESTAE 49
Till you should come. Your supper has been spread
This long while: you'll be ready for your meat."
With that he beckoned me to take a seat
Before the table, lifting from the crook 110
The singing kettle ; while with far-off look,
As though she neither saw nor heard,
His wife sat gazing at the glowing peat.
So, wondering sorely, I sat down to eat;
And yet she neither spoke nor stirred,
But in her high-backed chair sat bolt-upright
With still grey eyes and tumbled hair, as white
As fairy-cotton, straggling o'er her brow
And hung in wisps about her wasted cheek.
But when I'd finished and drawn near the fire 120
She suddenly turned round to speak,
Her old eyes kindling with a tense desire.
Her words came tremblingly : " You'll tell me now
What news you bring of him, my son ? " Amazed,
I met that searching and love-famished look ;
And then the old man, seeing I looked dazed,
Made shift to swing aside the kettle-crook,
And muttered in my ear :
" John Netherton, his name."—And, as I gazed
Into the peat that broke in clear blue flame, 130
Remembrance flashed upon me with the name,
And I slipped back in memory twenty-year—
Back to the fo'c'sle of a villainous boat;
And once again in that hot hell I lay
Watching the smoky lanthorn duck and sway,
As though in steamy stench it kept afloat .. .
The fiery fangs of fever at my throat,